Adoption Update: Meet Alia Mercedes

If you follow me on instagram then you have been seeing some photos of Alia and also some boring stuff like my toilet. Hot right? I am not painting right now, or going to the studio much, so I don't have sexy painting photos to post. Time is flying and I will be back to work soon, but right now this is just fun as getout.

In the hospital room moments after she was born.

Alia Mercedes was born on Sunday September 7th at 8:30am. We got a call that Saturday night at midnight from our birthmother who was in labor. We took her to the hospital and after several hours they put her in a room and we got to hang with her and sleep there with her. She was so strong and brave. They admitted other women in front of her because they were being so vocal about their pain while our sweet birthmother was grimacing in silence and by the time they got her into a room and checked her she was four centimeters. She only pushed twice to get Alia out and I was right there and watched it happen. It was amazing to see her born, to cut her umbilical cord and to hold her and feed her within a few minutes of her being born! I was sort of in shock. At one moment O puts his hand on her tummy and leaned in an whispered "welcome to our team sweet Alia." It totally made me cry. She stayed in the NICU for 48 hours until she was cleared to come home with us. It has been a whirlwind of visits since then, everyone I have ever known (it feels like) has come over to see her, hold her, give us sweet gifts and share our joy. My mom has been staying with us a few days a week and that has been so nice because she is an expert with babies and she is fun to have around because we laugh a lot. 

When I was an adolescent my mom took care of infants at home, and I babysat a lot for them on the weekends. I had completely forgotten about that part of my life but it all came back to me as soon as I looked down at her and put her first onsie on. I am comfortable with babies! I totally forgot about that. I have fed, burped, changed, bathed, soothed, played with and everything in between babies of many ages before. Oh yeah! I remember how to do this! Suweet. Doing all of these things with Alia is more fun because even her cry is sweet to me. 

Our ten day waiting period for birth mother revocation has passed and we are so happy that we are running smoothly along to our court date (sometime in the next couple of months). The court date will be the final step, and Alia will be totally ours, with O's last name and everything. 

Baby feet! So expressive and adorable. 

Alia is so adorable, and we are bonding so well. She makes sweet cooing and squealing noises all the time. Loves her passy, loves to be swaddled, loves to eat and really loves to snuggle up in a solly wrap and take a little stroll. She isn't sure about bath time but she loves the drying off part of the bath. I read Moms on Call in two seconds and I am following the process. So far she eats at 9pm, 3am and 7am. If you aren't a mom then you really don't care, but I have learned that other moms really want to talk about this kind of stuff. Hilarious. We have a pack and play while we wait for a friend to give us their crib, we have one of those rock and something things that she loves (but I don't love because it is made from a flammable, not breathable fabric. What? Babies sleep in that thing guys!)




So when Alia was at the hospital they fed her Similac. I wanted to feed her a more natural, organic formula but when I did research on them I was really worried by what I found. There are so many scary, very not good things in even the best quality organic formulas. Now, I don't judge any mom who feeds her baby a regular formula or anything really. You gotta get that baby fed man, I get it. But Alia smelled so bad when she was drinking Similac. I changed diaper brands, wipe brands, shampoo, detergent. Nothing made her smell better. She didn't have that sweet baby smell, she had a "I am sweating out a bunch of toxins" smell. I can't afford to buy donor breast milk (800usd a week, on average for this age).

I know its blurry, but I love her face so much!

So I ordered some Hipp formula from the UK because they have much stricter regulations on food there and I read that it would be a good choice but it took so long to arrive (even though I spent 50usd to expedite shipping) that we were sort of stuck so I did some googling and I found a homemade recipe using cow's milk here. I spoke with our pediatrician and she says we can go for it, since we are modifying the milk to make it more digestible but I am telling you guys all of this to see if any of you have made your own formula? Note: I am not using raw milk, only organic, grass fed, batch pasteurized. I know this might seem so ridiculously overly ambitious for a new mom to try, but it is actually pretty easy to make and prepare. Keep in mind that due to my gut issues I have become very adept at making special concoctions, being hyper vigilant about ingredients, I am used to not being able to eat or drink convenient, "normal" foods and making her formula seems very easy to me compared to all of the very involved diets I have tried on myself over the years. 

She is covered in hair, even her ears are hairy! Its cute and it will fall off eventually. I hope "hairy forehead" is not here to stay. She takes the unibrow to a whole new level right?

So moms. What formulas do you use? Have you ever made your own formula? I really wish I could give her breast milk, but I just don't have access to it. I wish that it were more socially acceptable to share milk but whateves. I can only do my best. Thank you so much for all of your sweet comments and emails. I appreciate you all, even if I didn't personally reply to you, I smiled when I read them.